The all-things-Waltham blog

Help blaze a trail through Waltham this Saturday

2011 June 2

by Jim Walker

For me, the greatness of Waltham comes from the fact that it cannot be easily defined. Yes, we are a city with a dense, vibrant and sometimes gritty downtown. But we’re also blessed with vast green swaths of natural, undeveloped lands. While the diversity and constant activity of Moody and Main may be the city’s pumping heart, the quiet and solitude of our green spaces like Prospect Hill Park and Shady’s Pond are our lungs.

This Saturday, we have a chance to open up those green spaces, make them more accessible to all who already enjoy getting into the woods and for those who may need more help finding their way into Waltham’s wilder side. The Waltham Land Trust will host a trail-building event on Saturday, June 4 from 8:30 a.m. to sometime early afternoon depending on how long the crews wish to work and how much progress has been made. Volunteers should meet in the parking lot of Our Lady Church at 920 Trapelo Road. A pizza lunch will be provided. Volunteers are asked to dress hard and dirty work. Sturdy boots, long pants and long sleeves are recommended.

Marc Rudnick, one of the founders and a board member of WLT, stressed that if you’re new to trail-building business (like me) don’t worry because no there’s experience necessary if you want to come and help.

“We turn complete novices into good trail crews in just one day,” Rudnick said, adding that folks will be clearing away brush and roots and creating trail beds. “It’s pretty dense in some areas so we’ll basically be making a tunnel in the woods.”

Rudnick and the Waltham Land Trust have been working to protect open space in the city since 1999. And from what I’ve been learning, they’ve had a remarkably successful run over those years, preserving a variety of large and small parcels, including 15 acres of wetlands off Smith Street, 6 acres atop Jericho Hill and 26 acres at Chesterbrook Woods, just to name a few.

“There’s an awful lot of open space here in Waltham. Compared to other cities we’re lucky to have so much,” Rudnick said. “In my 35 years here, there has been a sea-change from seeing [undeveloped open space] as a problem to seeing it as an amenity.”

What I personally respect and support the WLT for is its mission to not only protect these beautiful spaces but also make them accessible, open them up to responsible use by the community. I’ve never been one for preservation that simply takes a lock-it-up-and-throw-away-the-key approach. You’ve got to get people out to these beautiful places that may have been hidden from them for years.

Saturday’s trail building effort (on National Trails Day nonetheless) is exactly on that wavelength. The section of trail that’s being built is part of a 9-mile loop that by the end of the summer will connect Waltham through the various green spaces to the Mass Audobon’s Habitat site in Belmont. And that 9-mile loop is also part of the 20-mile Western Greenway effort that includes trails in Waltham, Lexington and Belmont. That’s pretty amazing to me. Twenty miles of trails right in our backyard. I can’t wait to help build it.

“It’s a tremendous sense of accomplishment,” Rudnick said. “You can walk right through it that same day. It’s really quite astounding what we can get done even in just one day with a crew of twenty or more.”

I realize that you’re just making a joke, but I’ll make this point anyway. We at WLT are asking for help in building YOUR trails, not “our” trails. The idea is to make it so that you or anyone in the community (or visitors from anywhere else, for that matter) will be able enjoy Waltham’s open spaces. To make that happen, we’ll have to share in the common “yard work”. See you Saturday?

The reason I cracked wise was because I had already set Saturday aside to do long overdue yard work – I couldn’t put it off any longer – and spent the whole day doing it.
Had I been free Saturday (or at least free to further procrastinate), I would certainly have considered helping the WLT. I didn’t mean to imply it wasn’t a worthwhile opportunity to volunteer.
I hope it went well, and maybe I’ll see you next year.

Hey Dennis, our crew had a great time out in the woods on Saturday. It was a lot of fun to work on something like this. Totally new experience for me. Hopefully your yard work went well over the weekend and maybe you can check out one of WLT’s next events over the summer and fall. Check their website for updates and listings: walthamlandtrust.org

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Welcome to Brand New Watch

A blog about life in Waltham written by me, Jim Walker, photo editor of the Waltham News Tribune and wickedlocalwaltham.com and proud resident of the Watch City since 2008. It will be some news, some fun and hopefully plenty of topics to talk about. Ideas? Email me here.